


Phantom Joy

by CoronaTheBee



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Light Angst, Pregnancy, Psychic Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 03:31:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5812105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoronaTheBee/pseuds/CoronaTheBee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tightness pinged to life in Kylo’s chest, all at once.  Rey was projecting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phantom Joy

Tightness pinged to life in Kylo’s chest, all at once. Rey was projecting. He could always feel her thoughts brushing at the fringe of his consciousness. This was something stronger, more insistent. It happened, occasionally. It had since they met, mind to mind, months ago.

 

This time something Rey was seeing had caught her attention. Some _one_ , he realized. It was difficult to conceptualize how he knew what he did. The thoughts filtered into his, sometimes indiscernible from his own. Other times they were clearly tinged with some indication that they were hers—hanging like bright stars among his darker thoughts. Now he could feel a handful of emotions flitting through her, all of them hazy but difficult to ignore.

 

Fascination was easiest to place, when he examined the tangle of thoughts she was projecting. The bright, childish feel of the emotion was compelling.   Someone had her full attention and had set her mind whirring.

 

Curiosity was close behind, and not unusual for the young Jedi. She was always tinkering with something, picking it apart and building back again. It was like breathing for her. It was easily distinguishable, familiar as he was with it. The steady thrum was always present in her thoughts, buzzing and demanding to be acknowledged.

 

A hazier emotion floated through the bond, after the others. Shapeless and faint. Kylo turned the thought over again, teasing at what she had unwittingly dropped into his mind. It was hard to describe, perhaps by its own nature. He could feel her, still, struggling with whatever it was that had sparked this flare of emotion. Not quite confusion, but something like it. Bafflement—that was closer. She had been blindsided by whatever she saw.

 

Then, a low ache. An echoing feeling that Rey compared to the husks of the Jakku ruins. To the deep, still dark of a hollowed destroyer, familiar and resented and beloved all at once the scape of her memory. Kylo felt it build between his shoulders and ripple into the base of his skull. Longing. He could feel it wash over her.

 

Kylo let his limbs relax, one by one, as he fell into a passive meditation. It was more difficult than it had once been. His thoughts raged too often and in too many directions to make it simple. But it was quick, just now, when he reached out for the shimmer of her in the corner of his mind. Behind whatever flicker of his light was left, where she was often found. Whatever disembodied bit of her that anchored the bond had drifted there and refused to leave.

 

He could hear her voice, could almost see her thoughts forming as she spoke. _You’re sure?_ She asked, but was seeking permission. His curiosity only peaked higher. Kylo kept his thoughts apart carefully, afraid what she would do should she find him here.

 

Then he could feel a smile tug across his face, mirroring the one that threatened to split hers in two. It was difficult, when he indulged their connection this way, to keep himself from expressing what she felt. When he was focused on her the way that he was now--they blurred together.

  
Rey’s hand was raised, and he could feel his mind bob along absently in her wake. His palm hovered as hers did, and his heart stuttered along with hers as they smoothed a hand onto something . . . wondrous.

 

_Amazing_ she thought, and he saw at last through her eyes as her mind erupted in awe. Her joy ripped through their bond, lit the Force between them with a warbling, breathless emotion he could not name. Had never felt.

 

A round, ruddy face swam into focus.   _Breeta_ , Rey’s mind supplied. A mechanic, and friend.   Kylo saw at once what it was that had so fascinated Rey. The pale fabric of the older woman’s tunic was pulled taught over a heavy belly. Rey’s hand splayed wide atop it, sensing the stir of something beneath as the Force magnified the riot of her emotions.

 

Kylo drew a surprised breath as a thousand thoughts occurred to Rey at once. She’d never seen anything like it. Had known of course, vaguely, that humans carried their young like other near-humans. But on Jakku, there were few of those—and none with Breeta’s condition.

 

Wonder surged through Rey like a tide. Kylo watched, chest tight as Rey’s as she felt a faint shift beneath her hand. Longing, deeper and more defined than before panged into existence in their chest. Words like _family_ and _love_ rose in Rey’s mind. Kylo watched as she imagined the warm, soft weight of a child in her arms. The puff of breath on her neck as they lay over her chest. Heard the faint sound of her voice humming to a child whose face was invisible to him, curled as he was into the shape of her body. _Never alone again._

 

His hair, her son’s hair, was dark. So dark, it seemed black. Kylo saw it and could not be sure if she had imagined it, or if he—his thoughts jolted back into his own mind. Reorienting himself, he released a long hoarse breath with his eyes still held tightly shut.

 

The familiar cold of his own mind enveloped him. The sterility of it, after the sound and color of all that was _Rey_ , was jarring. Eyes open at last, he felt the shape of her mind ebbing away from his own. Methodically, he burned away any lingering trace of her emotions, their thoughts, until there was nothing.

 

Last was the husky cry of a newborn, her hair hanging loose, and the sweet burden of their combined weight rested against him.

 


End file.
